Author: Linda Wright

Linda Wright, author of "My Turn: When Caregiving Roles Reverse," now lives in Florida. She has served on the boards of organizations serving people with rare, genetic bleeding disorders like hers. As a writer, she has contributed to several anthologies and is a member of the Tallahassee Writers Association. Linda is married to the Reverend Ms. Robin Gray.

The Waiting Game

~ Linda Wright
“So much for the toast I had planned to eat for breakfast,” I muttered when I saw that I sliced my finger with the bread knife.
 
It was 8:30 a.m. on a Saturday. I knew immediately it was not going to stop bleeding. I wrapped the finger with gauze and taped it as tightly as I could without cutting off the circulation, then I called the hematologist.
 
“Don’t worry,” she said, “I’m on call this weekend, so have them page me when you get to the hospital.”
 
It was 9:00 a.m. The waiting room outside the ER looked deserted. It took the receptionist a few seconds to notice me standing in front of him. I said, “Dr. Jefferson wants to be paged and told that I have arrived.”
 
Without responding, he handed me a clip board and pen, “Just write your name and insurance information on the form, then bring it back to me.”
 
Holding my left hand up above my head, I struggled to keep the blood from leaking through my bandaged finger and onto the paper. I watched the parade of people enter the waiting room. Soon there was a woman with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She looked as if she had slept in an alley last night and she was babbling to no one in particular. An ambulance driver rolled in a young woman on a stretcher. I overheard the young woman explaining to someone on her cell phone that she believed her leg was broken. A car had hit her while she was riding her bicycle. Her voice was shaky and she glanced around the room at the rest of us. “They don’t have a room for me yet,” she told the person on the phone, “can you come get me and take me to another hospital?”
 
It was 10:00 a.m. when the triage nurse called me into a cubical behind the reception desk. She took my blood pressure, and documented my injury. “I know it looks like just a small cut to you, but my blood does not clot.” She looked doubtful. Once again, I said, “Dr. Jefferson wants to be paged and told that I have arrived.”
 
“We can’t do that until you are in a room,” the nurse said tersely.
 
Several people drifted into the waiting room while I had been in triage. A woman holding an infant occupied the chair I had been sitting in. I found another chair near a person who appeared to be coughing up phlegm into a tissue.
 
It was 11:00 a.m. before my name was called. The room I was assigned was directly in front of the nurses’ station. I could overhear the nurses discussing the upcoming football games that weekend.
 
When the nurse came in to take my vital signs, I glanced at the clock and noticed that it was now 11:30 a.m. I attempted to contain my irritation as I said, “Dr. Jefferson wants to be paged and told that I have arrived.”
 
“We will do that as soon as the ER doctor has seen you.”
 
The resident doctor meandered into my cubical just after noon. He looked as if he hadn’t slept the night before. “It says you have afibrinogenemia, what’s that?”
 
“Just call my hematologist,” I snapped.
 
It was after 3:00 p.m. before the bleeding finger was treated and I was released. By that time, the waiting room had filled to standing room only. I thought of all the people who have asked me if I could bleed to death from a small cut. “No it wouldn’t kill me,” I always reply, “but it could take a long time to heal.”

It’s Not Easy to Be Green

~ Linda Wright

Yesterday, we noticed a Green Anole trapped behind the glass door on our wood stove. We imagine that it climbed down the chimney, perhaps nibbling insects along the way, and then could not figure out how to climb back up.

When it was still there today, we became more concerned. We gathered the necessary critter rescue kit and freed the Anole to its outdoor habitat. After it was safely outside again, we watched as it gradually turned from the drab brownish color it had become inside the wood stove back to a brilliant green again.

In my childhood I gained a lot of experience capturing backyard critters of many sizes and shapes. Grasshoppers, toads, garter snakes, turtles and spiders were often placed in temporary habitats constructed in jars or terrariums with screened lids. One day, I entered the kitchen just in time to hear my mother calmly talking on the telephone. Her last sentence was, “I’m sorry, Jane, I have to hang up know. My daughter’s snake just crawled out from behind the stove.” As she lowered the phone, I could hear Jane screaming, “Did you say snake?” I learned by that experience that a snake could easily escape if an old hosiery stocking was used to cover a jar motel.

Eventually, my father created a special guest room for viewing spider webs. It had a wooden frame with twigs inserted along the inner side edges and moveable Plexiglas panels on the front and back. There was a corked hole at the top for dropping in a spider. Each spider created it’s own special web stretching the threads between the twigs. Hours of amusement were spent feeding the spiders before they were set free again. The web remained in the box. By removing the Plexiglas, it could then be spray-painted, placed on a piece of black construction paper, and labeled with the species of spider that had created it.

All the critter visitors were fed and given fresh water for a day or two, then released back to freedom where they had been found. My mother, who enjoyed it as much as the neighborhood children, usually taught the backyard nature study. The children arrived several times a day to assist and observe. Together we watched as toads shed their skins by sweating and larvae transformed into butterflies. We learned that a preying mantis would drink water from a spoon held in front of it, tilting its head in a horse-like pose. Mom would bring out the identification books that we owned or walk us to the local branch library to find information about our current guests.

However, I learned more than how to identify these backyard critters. I grew to respect each of them as individuals and to value their companionship. By caring for them, I came to care about their safety and the survival of the planet we share together. It seems natural to me to reduce, reuse and recycle; not to waste limited resources; to tread softly upon this earth.

As I watched the Anole transform from the dusty color it had taken on inside the wood stove back into a green, melded with the leaves, I reflected that it’s not easy to get green. But, when the survival of all our relations is at risk, it becomes urgent.

Beetle Picking

~ Linda Wright ~ 2 Comments

Since moving to Florida, I haven’t seen a Japanese beetle. I grew up in the Northeast and in my memory the Japanese beetles appeared on July 1st each summer. One day there would be none and the next day they seemed to be munching away on every leaf and flower in sight. It was the hallmark that summer had arrived. They were slow moving and when they flew they had a tendency to bump into things, although that was not a problem because they only wanted to go short distances, from one shrub to the next. They carved out scalloped edges and chewed lace patterns into leaves, diminished the petals until the blossoms looked tattered, and did serious damage to a vegetable garden in a few days. Their appetites were awesome.

Their unwavering concentration on eating left them particularly easy for a child to pluck from a plant and examine carefully. They showed little fear or annoyance being held between two fingers and although there legs were prickly, we knew they would not bite or sting us. Their rigid outer shell was iridescent. The large head was glimmering green and the hard body reflected like polished copper.

My mother invested countless hours transforming the sandy soil in our back yard by mixing in compost. She would begin in the early spring planting seeds indoors; then as the weather outdoors began to warm placing the sprouts under the cold frame. She hoed rows for beans, tomatoes, and squash. She never purchased a flower, shrub, or fern, but transplanted many from the gardens of friends, nursing each new one along by carrying cans of water. She would get down on her knees for hours to pull out the weeds.

Mom was not about to let the garden be lost to some tough-skinned beetles, but one thing she would not do is put the children and the birds at risk by using pesticides. The killing had to be one at a time, and as quick as possible, like plucking weeds. Stepping on the bugs was messy and ineffective. Instead my mother partially filled used coffee cans with kerosene oil. It was an odd summer pastime, seeing who could fill the can of oil first. At times four and even five children could be seem going from plant to plant harvesting beetles and dropping them into a can where they suffocated.

I wanted to have fresh squash, pole beans, and ripe tomatoes. The truth is I found beetle picking satisfying. No doubt some of the neighborhood children found the drowning of beetles a way of releasing their anger or frustration.

It wasn’t until I was an adult that I realized that even if one only eats vegetables, some life has been sacrificed.

Audacity

~ Linda Wright
It was a hot July 4th afternoon. Five-year old Alex had lots of energy. Susan and I stopped at a picnic area along the banks of the Charles River. Alex ran to the playground, climbing the jungle gym, and sliding down the ramp. Susan and I sat lazily on the child-sized swings. When we heard the sound of lapping water from the strokes of canoe paddles, we turned to see a man with a young boy getting out of a canoe. The man was gently coaching the boy as together they pulled the canoe safely to the riverbank.
 
I watched and glanced at Susan and to my surprise; she looked quite perky, not limp and sweaty the way I felt.
 
“Nice man,” Susan cooed in his direction. Her mellow voice was just loud enough to drift gently in the breeze, landing in the man’s ears. The man looked up with a smile and a nod. When the canoe was safely on the shore, Susan walked over to greet them. I stayed on the swing observing from a short distance Susan’s tilting head, her vivacious smile. I could not hear what either of them was saying.
 
When we got back in the car, Susan said, “Would you mind if I went out to dinner tonight and left Alex with you?”
 
“Of course not,” I said, amazed at how she had managed to get a dinner date so quickly.
 
The next day, I took Susan and Alex to the airport for their flight back to Canada. A month later Susan telephoned me.
 
“Hi, I’m staying with Greg this weekend. I won’t have time to come see you, just wanted to let you know I was in Boston.” Before a year had past, Susan had a work visa. She was house hunting with Greg. It was several more years before they married, but this year they will celebrate their 26th wedding anniversary.

All the News I Need

~ Linda Wright

After two hours in the Hospital’s Emergency Room lobby, I was transported into a room on the 4th floor. I clicked through the stations on the television until the monitor displayed the one I wanted. On the screen was the repeated pattern spreading out in shades of green, pink and blue representing the local weather. The commentator chatted about the recent extreme drought. Today, however, the problem would be flood damage. I turned to the window and watched sheets of rain descending from the sky.

The map on the television switched to national weather patterns. A second talking head on the western side of the map explained, “This is just storm number two. The third storm will be here by this weekend.” The U.S. Doppler radar swirled images depicting the intensity of rain and snow. Like the bell-shaped curve on a cardiogram chart, the precipitation moved downward from Northwest to Southeast and then up again to the Northeast. One of the nurses entered the room with a flip chart in hand. I muted the television to answer her questions.

Tornadoes and flood warnings flashed on the television screen. Brilliant dots of yellow and red symbolized dangerous conditions as the nurse entered my medical data into the hospital system. Even in the shelter of the hospital room I could hear thunder booming and see the wind splashing rain and broken leaves onto the window. My mind went back to the cryoprecitate thawing in the Blood Bank.

Most days I consciously avoid weather reports. I find the forecasts less reliable than looking at the sky or sniffing the wind. The I.V. Therapist entered the room. The task now was to find a viable vein on my body, one without too many scars or connecting valves. I turned the drama of the Weather Channel off. It was in my best interest to actively participate. I offered suggestions. “Teamwork,” the nurse commented, “always helps.”

The first stick was successful. In an hour I was free to go home. The second storm was ending and the third… well, I would prefer not to speculate.